


Interlude

by Warlordess



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Future Fic, Guilt Trip, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23871526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warlordess/pseuds/Warlordess
Summary: Drabble based on a request prompt from Tumblr. Ash Ketchum reflects on his recklessness after Misty is injured during a dangerous battle. Pokeshipping, post-confession, somewhat AU.
Relationships: Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum
Kudos: 14





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> As stated in the summary, this is a response to a prompt sent in to my blog ages ago that I enjoyed writing so I thought I'd share it on other sites. 
> 
> Thought it was worth noting that the setting is rather vague but I remember associating it with those ~future resistance fics~ that were popular at some point, like what if Team Rocket or whoever took over the world and Ash and crew were attempting to dismantle the regime... 
> 
> Prompt quote: "l’d die for you. Of course, I’d haunt you in the afterlife but really, it’s the thought that counts." 
> 
> Still a deceptively lighthearted read.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the story!

Ash Ketchum had done a  _ lot  _ of reckless things in his lifetime.

He’d attempted to throw a punch at a legendary psychic Pokemon. He’d scaled a wall via  _ vine whip _ to rescue his kidnapped mom from a team of renegade Unown. He’d traveled a frozen tundra and escaped an airship after it fell from the sky for the sake of finding three elemental orbs containing the power to quell the titanous Pokemon they were somehow connected to.

Countless other times, he’d directly challenged a criminal organization in order to rescue multiple captured Pokemon. Just as often, he’d actively clashed against the elements themselves, swept up in turbulent storms, swallowed by ocean waves or raging rivers, assaulted by fire and lightning, ice and earth.

Ash Ketchum had done a  _ lot  _ of reckless things in his lifetime… but this was the first time he could remember dragging one of his best friends into his flurry of hastiness.

“I’m fine, Ash, it’s just a broken arm, y’know?” Misty responded with a creased brow, awkwardly reaching into one of the kitchen cabinets for a cup, turning and filling it with water, breathing through the arc of pain that hit her as she did so.

“It’s  _ not  _ just the arm though. You bruised two ribs and ended up with a concussion too. And I really  _ wish _ ,” he grunted when he tried to pull out her chair for her to sit only for her to nudge him out of the way, apparently adamant that she could retain her independence, “that you’d let someone help you out with things for now.”

“I knew what I was signing up for!” she told him in a curt hiss, slamming her cup on the dining table before her and hissing, then gingerly easing herself into the seat and sighing in relief, something Ash gave her a scrutinizing stare for.

“Really, Myst? You won’t just let me help you out?”

“I’m not an invalid, Ash. And besides, if I needed help, you wouldn’t be my first choice, now, would you?”

Somewhat affronted by this comment, the raven-haired Pokemon trainer couldn’t help his instinctive mutter.

“You seem like an invalid to  _ me _ .”

The redheaded gym trainer froze, sucked in a subdued wheezing breath through her teeth, pursed her lips tightly together, and stared him down in fury, fire ablaze in her eyes.

“I don’t know who you think you are to say that about me when, despite having already been exposed to those injuries you’re holding against me for whatever reason, I was  _ still _ able to rescue  _ your  _ sorry ass when it was needed! So you have  _ no  _ right to--” she paused mid-rant at the look on Ash’s face, ferocity dying out almost instantaneously.

“... Um, what’s with your face?” she asked blankly, clearly perturbed by his troubled expression, readjusting uncomfortably in her seat and flinching as she unintentionally jostled her injuries.

Ash remained silent for a solid minute or two after her question. It had almost reached the point of her patience completely fading to nothing when he finally raised his head, grim with tension.

“I - I don’t… I  _ know _ that you’re not an invalid, okay? I shouldn’t have said that… Sorry,” he finished lamely, suddenly unable to stare her in the eyes.

“Holy… Ash, sit down.  _ Now _ .”

“Wha…? Why?!” he replied, but was so convinced by her tone that he did as she told him without complaint.

“Because!” she stated firmly, grabbing her cell-phone and unlocking it, “I can only assume that you’re dying after all if you’re apologizing to me!”

“Misty!” Ash countered, but he had to admit that she’d done a good job of lightening the mood. “I was trying to be serious! I - I was… trying to take responsibility.”

“For basically calling me useless? Yeah, you  _ should _ .”

“No, not for that. Well, I mean,  _ yeah _ ,” he amended when her gaze darkened again before he went on, “but I was talking more about… what happened to you… your body.”

Misty’s brow furrowed as she took in his comment, took in the his whole head drooped so low she couldn’t see herself reflected in his eyes anymore, took in the sight of his short study of the cast and sling around her arm, his gaze falling to her abdomen , and then back up to her head in reference to her concussion last of all.

“What are you talking about, Ash?” she asked him dismissively, waving her good arm around as if to brush off his concern on her way to grab another swig of her water. “What happened to me has nothing to do with you. Like I said, I knew what I was signing up for at the time.”

“But you got most of those injuries from protecting me! From saving my sorry ass, as you put it!” And, before she could interrupt, correct, or lie to him again, he continued, “I know you probably thought I was too dense to pay that kind of attention but… I  _ know  _ that those ribs and that bump on your head were my fault. Your arm being broken was the only thing that happened… before you had to cover for me.”

He didn’t elaborate on the incident that had occurred a week or two back, even as his eyes fluttered closed and he inhaled deeply to cope with what Misty could only assume was guilt at this point. He didn’t spell out that the bruised ribs were the result of her shielding his body with her own in desperation from a blast of powerful decimating light provided by a foreign Pokemon’s  _ giga impact _ , her concussion the result of an equally destructive collision with a cobblestone wall some odd twenty feet away from him, a collision that had only happened because her body couldn’t withstand the gravitational pressure that had smashed into her full-force.

He didn’t tell her also that, while the battle they’d been fighting had raged onward despite her losing consciousness after, that his vision of the world around him had slowed to a dull crawl in retaliation. He didn’t speak of how his heart had encased itself momentarily in ice before exploding back out of its cage in uproarious and despairing panic at the unmoving crumpled heap that was her figure. He didn’t share with her the extra weight of culpability he carried at the fact that, when her evacuation had been ordered, he couldn’t even afford to spend the time to approach her himself or carry her to safety because his presence had still been too necessary at the time to lose.

“Ash… I need you to look at me.”

He paused the memory storm that had been previously coursing through him, reaching up and digging his fingers into the bridge of his nose, then his temple. And then, finally, he found the confidence to look her in the eyes as she’d instructed.

“You can’t spend your whole life carrying these burdens, you dummy. I made the choice back there to do what I did, so if anyone is going to be allowed to feel some type of way about it, it’s gonna be me. And do you know how I feel about it?” she asked earnestly, waiting for Ash’s awkward shake of the head before clarifying.

“I feel proud. I feel useful. I feel like an equal part in what we did, what we accomplished. I protected the guy I love with all my heart from something that could have essentially killed him. I chose my part, Ash, and I played it perfectly.”

“But at the risk of your own life?!” the raven-haired trainer demanded, breath hitching in a fit.

“You’ve risked your life probably a million times since we first met, Mr. Pokemon Master, so you don’t get to be the one who feeds me that particular moral. Sorry!” the redheaded gym trainer scoffed and glared,  _ hmph _ ing at his audacity to even try. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret that will hopefully make you feel better about all this.

“I’d die for you.”

Those final words blinded and blackened his visage all in one fell swoop, shards of ice clambering, clawing, up his esophagus and into his throat before trickling frigidly back down into the empty cavernous pit that was his stomach.

“Of course, I’d haunt you in the afterlife but really, it’s the thought that counts,” she went on with a hint of a bittersweet smile that somewhat belied the truth still behind her words, and it was perhaps this that drove Ash to grind out his firm, one word response.

“ _ No _ .”

Misty sobered up completely at his tone and almost immediately countered him with a stiff shrug.

“Well, you can’t stop me from doing what I want to do, Mr. Pokemon Master. Same as a couple of weeks ago, these decisions are mine to make. They’re just as much not your choice as they are not your responsibility. Really, all  _ you  _ can do is try not to die.”

“Then I will!” he practically shouted at her, fists clenched at his sides, shoulders and spine straight as if to further defend his point, “‘Cause if I don’t die then neither can you, right? So I won’t! Instead, we’ll be each other’s reasons to live, okay?!”

Misty stared him down intently, allowing for a curious blink. He’d sounded so absolute that she admitted even she, as cynical as she was that he’d be able to stick to his own vow, almost felt she could find confidence enough in his words to believe him. And not only that but…

“Ash,” she began, trying to hold in her giggle, “that kind of sounded like a marriage proposal.”

“Mwah! Th - that wasn’t what I was going for! I promise!” he responded, flushing brilliantly, facial muscles tightening as he inched backwards away from her.

“Well, geez, you don’t have to sound so against it!” the redhead stated, shooting her boyfriend a dirty look.

“I - I didn’t mean that either! Mwah! Myst! You can’t hold a grudge against me over something like this, right? That’s unfair!”

But Misty was already walking around him in an exaggerated huff, nose up in the air, stalking out of the room, concealing her smile.

“Misty!” he whined after her.

And that was the story of how the two of them got engaged… once Ash figured out it was the right move to make next (which wasn’t until three days later).


End file.
